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The Week in Yum -Aug1-7 Another Weekend in Ottawa and Playing With My Actifry

The Kid and I accompanied Shack to Ottawa for the long weekend since it was a holiday and we have been leaving The Kid at home up until this point. Every kid, even a full time working man with facial hair, has to spend at least one long weekend suffering through his dorky parents.

We didn't do anything touristy, just walked around, ate some good food and showed the manchild the city before hopping on the train with him to come home Monday night, leaving his papa there to work nights for the next few weeks out in the woods. Oh, we did go see Ant Man on Sunday night and IT WAS FUNNY. Who knew?? A movie about a superhero who fights with an army of ants didn't suck?

We made return visits to Ace Mercado, Ola Cocina and Lowertown Brewery (more about those places in last week's roundup, here) so that I could write actual reviews, which will be coming soon. We also fit in a visit to Oz Kafe , one of Shack's favourite places to get late night snacks - okay, it is also one of the few places to get decent food after 10 pm but it helps that it's good enough to go earlier too. It's situated in this weird little courtyard on Elgin, below street level and sandwiched between a Mexican restaurant, a pub and a Japanese/Korean place with a quasi communal courtyard. Far too many people came to sit down at one of Oz's tables only to pick up and move to the upper level because they wanted to eat at the mediocre Mexican place. I wanted to yell at all of them to sit the hell down and enjoy much better food from Oz but I am a bit afraid of Ottawa residents now that I know that they have the highest concentration of Ashley Madison members in the world. Still waters run deep, right?

I spent the rest of the week playing with my new Actifry Express XL, courtesy of T-fal Canada. I have been dying to get my hands on one of these things and I have to tell you, I am having a lot of fun with it. The maiden voyage was a batch of potato/sweet potato fries that I turned into poutine since french fries are the main reason most people buy one. I wasn't surprised when the fries turned out to be quite good and although not really comparable to actual deep fried fries, they are certainly on par with oven roasted except that I only used about 1/2 tbls of olive oil and they were perfect for poutine.

I also had good success with chicken wings, pretty good success with cauliflower but a batch of sweet potato fries came out soggy. I did not rinse and dry them first because I just cut the sweet potato up an hour or so before cooking and they were dry. The instructions always say to rinse and dry the potatoes thoroughly and I guess they aren't kidding around. This weekend I am trying some of my vietnamese chicken meatballs in there without the paddle.

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About Me

Carole's passions for food and her family--although not necessarily in that order--are legendary. From her love of blogging in The Yum Yum Factor, including showcasing delicious and unique ethnic and everyday recipes as well as reviewing local restaurants and other exciting edible happenings in Toronto, to completing a personal challenge of never repeating the same recipe twice for a full year (which proved easier said than done!) to being regularly profiled Canada-wide in the National Post's Gastropost feature, Carole has found her niche in the food world by drawing on her vast travel experience and food knowledge for inspiration as well as the daily ups and downs of her life for humour.

When she's not busy creating magic in her own kitchen, Carole, an in-demand makeup artist, works her magic on celebrities from Kristen Stewart to Bruce Willis.